This is a repository for all cool scientific discussion and fascination. Scientific facts, theories, and overall cool scientific stuff that you'd like to share with others. Stuff that makes you smile and wonder at the amazing shit going on around us, that most people don't notice.

The Earth spins at 1,000 mph, all the while traveling through space at an incredible 67,000 mph.

That's what always bothered me about time travel sci-fi stories that said "We're in the same space, but have traveled forwards/backwards in time!" If the earth is spinning and you travel an hour into the future (starting in KC), the space that you were occupying is now in the Rockies. And then you factor in the earth orbiting the sun, and all of a sudden you're floating out in space in the earth's orbit. And then you factor in the sun and the entire solar system orbiting the Milky Way, and you're no longer even within the earth's orbit.

But that all assumes that there is a rigid 3-dimensional framework that everything in the universe moves through, which I've been told is not the case. And that's where I start to hit the limits of my small mind. Because maybe relativity would keep you on the earth, because it has the highest gravitational effect on you.

Communities of cockroaches are even capable of making collective decisions for the greater good.

Unlike most idiot humans...

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Thanks, Trump for the civics lesson. We are learning so much about impeachment, the 25th Amendment, order of succession, nepotism, separation of powers, 1st Amendment, obstruction of justice, the emoluments clause, Logan Act, conflicts of interest, collusion, sanctions, oligarchs, money laundering and so much more.

That's what always bothered me about time travel sci-fi stories that said "We're in the same space, but have traveled forwards/backwards in time!" If the earth is spinning and you travel an hour into the future (starting in KC), the space that you were occupying is now in the Rockies. And then you factor in the earth orbiting the sun, and all of a sudden you're floating out in space in the earth's orbit. And then you factor in the sun and the entire solar system orbiting the Milky Way, and you're no longer even within the earth's orbit.

But that all assumes that there is a rigid 3-dimensional framework that everything in the universe moves through, which I've been told is not the case. And that's where I start to hit the limits of my small mind. Because maybe relativity would keep you on the earth, because it has the highest gravitational effect on you.

Gravity is actually the weakest of all the known forces. No one is really sure why it is so weak but the size of the earth is so massive that it has enough impact on us to keep us from flying off its surface.

__________________
Thanks, Trump for the civics lesson. We are learning so much about impeachment, the 25th Amendment, order of succession, nepotism, separation of powers, 1st Amendment, obstruction of justice, the emoluments clause, Logan Act, conflicts of interest, collusion, sanctions, oligarchs, money laundering and so much more.

In 1887, a glacial geologist named George Frederick Wright was hiking across the Muir Glacier in southeast Alaska when something strange caught his eye. Just as the daylight began to fade, the previously uninterrupted expanse of white snow around him began to develop what appeared to be a five o’clock shadow. These wriggling “whiskers” grew rapidly and emerged from the solid ice, leaving the snow crawling with an astonishing number of small black worms. Within approximately an hour there were tens of thousands of them criss-crossing the snow as far as he could see, leaving nary a square inch unwormed. A few hours later they began to slip effortlessly back into the ice, ultimately leaving nothing but pure white snow behind for the morning sun. The ice scientist brought news of these strange ice worms back to polite civilization, yet even over a century later little is known about the intriguing organisms.

The creatures that Wright observed were Mesenchytraeus solifugus–inch-or-so long ice-dwelling worms that reside exclusively in the coastal glaciers of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. The ice worms are so married to their home glaciers that even when a glacier is surrounded by a snow field the creatures will not wander more than a few meters from the underlying glacier’s edge. Moreover, these unusual organisms thrive only at temperatures near the freezing point of water. If one warms an ice worm to even a few degrees above freezing the worm will melt into goo. During the coldest months of the year the worms do not appear on the surface at all; it is suspected that they creep deep into the ice and suspend their animations for the duration of winter.
Although the ice worms lack eyes, some unknown mechanism allows them to respond to light and dark. By day the throngs of worms lurk as deep as two meters below the surface, and by night they squirm out to feed. Their preferred foods are bacteria, bits of pollen, and various snow algae including watermelon snow, a pinkish algae which creates swaths of snow that have the hue and aroma of fresh watermelon. Exactly how these worms penetrate the seemingly solid glacier ice is still a mystery. Some researchers hypothesize that the worms use the large pore atop their heads to excrete a lubricant that allows them to slip through minuscule fissures, while others suggest that the same pore might instead secrete an antifreeze agent that melts a path through the ice.

Although ice worms are usually solitary wanderers in the friscalating dusklight, they do occasionally linger in meltwater pools during the day. There they often intermingle as writhing, knotty groups engaged in what is assumed to be reproductive ice worm orgies.

In recent years NASA has provided limited funding to reverse-engineer Mesenchytraeus solifugus‘ cold tolerance to see if it might provide insight into possible life on our icy neighboring planets. More pragmatic scientists are also teasing out the ice worms’ secrets in hopes that the cold-resistant proteins might enable long-term cold-storage of human organ and tissues for transplantation. Sadly, our opportunity to exploit the ice worms is shrinking just as rapidly as the glaciers that they inhabit. Sorry ice worms. With warmest personal regards, humanity.

__________________
Thanks, Trump for the civics lesson. We are learning so much about impeachment, the 25th Amendment, order of succession, nepotism, separation of powers, 1st Amendment, obstruction of justice, the emoluments clause, Logan Act, conflicts of interest, collusion, sanctions, oligarchs, money laundering and so much more.

Ever wonder how that comparison came to be? It's because Venus is the most ass backwards object in our solar system, that behaves completely opposite of the other celestial bodies.

Venus is the only planet in our solar system that rotates clockwise. Scientists have no idea how it came to spin backwards. It's as perplexing as female driving. Some think that it might have entered our galaxy after a collision with another large body, that blasted it our way and possibly reversed its rotation.

Venus rotates very very slowly. So slowly, that it orbits the sun faster than it can make one whole rotation on its axis. In other words, Venus has a longer day than year.

Venus has zero axis tilt. Meaning that if it had a thin atmosphere, it would have no seasons at all.

It's the hottest planet by far.

At one time, Venus was thought to be two separate bodies, because it was visible both day and night. Venus was known as the morning star (Eosphorus) and the evening star (Hesperus).

On January the 2nd 2004, a NASA probe named Stardust, 240,000,000 miles from Earth, made a fly by of the Comet Wild 2, dipping into its geyser-like jets of ice particles and collecting a sample. The subsequent analysis of the samples startled and thrilled Astrobiologists, altered our model of planetary formation and evolution, and sobered and arrested the rest of the thinking world.

Although the mission went off without a hitch, this was no easy feat. Stardust first had to first align itself with the comet, which was seen to be flying through space at 60,000 mph, and, then, it had to make a dive through through the clouds of dust, nearing the icy center. Having completed this, it then had to endure the heavy bombardment of icy material inflicted on it by geysers shooting up at supersonic velocities (almost 14,000 miles per hour, roughly 6x the speed of a speeding bullet). Surviving this intact, it flew through the clouds of material and 'scooped' up samples with its "flypaper-like" aerogel collection grid, returning home on January 15th, 2006. With this being the first time a comet's interior had been sampled in its natural habitat, scientists the world over waited in anticipation as to what the samples contained. After three years of analysis the team studying the samples made an disturbing but remarkable discovery, in the dust from the comet, traces of an amino acid called glycine were found.

This may seem rather mundane until the realization that this molecule is an integral part of living things and that comets are fairly common in our Solar System and throughout galaxies. Glycine is one of the most common amino acids, and amino acids are, of course, the building blocks of proteins and are, obviously, essential for life. This discovery supports and furthers the idea that some of life's ingredients were delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts long ago and implies that the fundamental building blocks of life could be prevalent in the universe (the odds of us finding this amino acid on our first sample of a comet in space being astronomical, excuse the pun). and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be more common than rare. But where could these vital comets have come from, and how could they be delivered to Earth?

The proposed idea is that comets orbiting in the Kuiper belt in a chaotic fashion were dejected after a collision around 3.9 billion years ago in the early stages of the solar system by a planet like Uranus or Neptune. After gaining momentum and "our" desired trajectory, they were sent hurtling towards the proto-Earth to deliver the building blocks for life, the period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. During this period it is thought that every square inch of Earth was impacted by a mixture of meteorites and comets.

Comets: not only are they a beautiful phenomena, leaving hundreds and thousands of miles long streams of material in a tail like fashion (due to the strains brought on by solar winds that can be viewed with a telescope and an acute knowledge of their whereabouts), but they also may be the facilitators of life. Earth, other planets and moons in our Solar System and beyond could have the rudimentary building blocks for life, thanks to these wonderful astral objects.